[3] Mungindi sits on the Carnarvon Highway and straddles the Barwon River which is the border between New South Wales and Queensland.
Nearby villages are, in New South Wales, Weemelah, Garah, Ashley and Boomi, and in Queensland, the towns of Thallon, Dirranbandi and Hebel.
[citation needed] Mungindi and the surrounding areas were originally inhabited by Aborigines of the Kamilaroi (Gamilaraay) tribe.
The Gamilaraay language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Balonne Shire Council, including the towns of Dirranbandi, Thallon, Talwood and Bungunya as well as the border towns of Mungindi and Boomi extending to Moree, Tamworth and Coonabarabran in NSW.
[15] Major Thomas Mitchell passed through Mungindi on his exploration of the interior in search of new areas suitable for agricultural development during the 1830s.
[16] By the 1850s, with stock moving on both sides of the Barwon River, the ford at Mungindi just upstream from the present bridge became the principal crossing.
Reliable waterholes and shaded flats on the riverbanks provided early drovers with a pleasant camp in the area, which the Gamilaroi Aboriginal People had held since antiquity as an important meeting place.
Regular use of the track is indicated by the fact that two, 40-chain (800 m) stock routes were proclaimed by 1868, both to Mungindi, one from St George and one from Whyenbah via Dareel.
After coming to New South Wales from Scotland at the age of twenty-one, he married at Murrurundi and brought his bride to Moree where they were among the first to purchase land in the town area.
By 1865, the volume of mail prompted the Postmaster-General of Queensland to send an inspector who recommended Alexander Walker's appointment as postmaster.
When work began in the same year on the first bridge over the Barwon River, Alexander realised the advantage of having his store located near the new crossing.
His shop, built that year, was close to the site of the present Old Police Station and at the time, near the Customs House, which operated until Federation in 1900 ended trading between colonies/ states.
[citation needed] During the 1880s movement in the area had led to the development of regular stagecoach services and communications further improved with the opening of a telegraphic office in 1881.
It would seem that families quickly followed the young men who found work opening up the area for the township on the Queensland side was surveyed probably in 1885 and the blocks offered for sale.
However, on 27 February 1886 those reserves were revoked, as on that day[citation needed] "His Excellency the Governor, with the advice of the Executive Council … directed it to be notified … that portions of Crown Lands are declared to be set apart as sites for the village of Mungindi and of suburban lands attached thereto."
The surveys of allotments were made after this proclamation and on 24 January 1888 in Moree, the first Mungindi town blocks were offered at auction sales they sold for amounts varying from £11 10s to £46.
Though 1890 brought a devastating flood which forced many families into difficulties and may have been responsible for the widespread of prickly pear which caused further hardship, many new names appear in Mungindi as selectors took up small blocks offered from land resumed after changes to land tenure in 1884 and as more tradesmen and businessmen took up residence in the town.
Society, two butchers, two hairdressers, two dressmakers and milliners, a shoemaker, a saddler, a baker, a tailor, a saw mill, a pawnbroker, a teacher of pianoforte, violin and oil painting, about four contract carpenters, a housepainter and decorator, a bricklayer and a tinsmith.
[citation needed] The newly refurbished Two Mile Hotel which was rebuilt following a fire is a two-mile drive out of town on the Queensland side heading towards St George.
[16] The One Ton Post was erected by surveyor John Brewer Cameron in 1881 to celebrate the completion of two long and hard years of surveys.